Montauk Beach Nourishment Could Be Complete by End of Month

The Ellis Island employs two trailing suction heads that are lowered to the sea floor and suck up sand, mixed with seawater shot from jets around the suction head to help it move easier, and pump it into the cavernous hopper.

The dredge is actually two vessles, the 433-foot Ellis Island, which has no motors of its own, and the Douglas B. Mackie, a 158-foot pusher tug that acts as its propulsion. The Ellis Island is mostly a giant vacuum, capable of sucking up and holding more than 15,000 tons of sand at a time. The sand is sucked into the hopper in a slurry of sand and seawater at the "borrow site" off Gurneys. Then most of the water is pumped out and the vessel heads to the discharge area about 2.5 miles to the east. When it arrives it connects at its bow to the onshore pipe, mixes the sand with seawater again and pumps the slurry ashore. The vessel has delivered 27 loads of sand to the beach since the work started just over a week ago. Photo by DOUG KUNTZ

The beach nourishment work was already nearly a third of the way complete when work was paused on Tuesday because of the storm. DOUG KUNTZ PHOTO

The Ellis Island's bow is like a giant garden hose nozzle, except it pumps out thousdands of pounds of sand and seawater a minute. DOUG KUNTZ

The Ellis Island can pump thousands of pounds of sand and seawater slurry ashore every minute though the mile-long long system of pipes that run from the connection point offshore onto the beach and then down the shore to where the new beach is being created. DOUG KUNTZ

The Ellis Island has already delivered 27 loads of sand to the beaches of Montauk, more than 200,000 tons worth. DOUG KUNTZ